Let
the abbot appoint a reliable brother to be in charge of the monastery’s
material goods. This brother should be
in charge of distributing these things as they are needed. He should also be in charge of collecting them
after they’ve been used. And he should
keep a list so that he won’t forget what he has loaned out. If anyone should handle the material goods of
the monastery in a sloppy or careless way, let him be reprimanded. If he does not amend, let him come under the
discipline of the Rule.
When I was seventeen, I burned a
hole in the living room carpet. I didn’t
do it on purpose, but let’s just say I “wasn’t thinking” when I set the hot
kettle of popcorn on the rug in front of the TV. A few minutes later, my mother was standing
in the middle of the room, looking at that blackened pit in front of the
television with tears in her eyes, saying, “How much of this house do you plan
to destroy before you finally leave for college? Just let me know so I won’t get too
attached.” That was a few weeks after I
had decided to juggle bowling balls in my bedroom and several months after I
had backed the family car into the front porch.
I remember thinking “Geez. I
didn’t mean to do it.” But in
retrospect, I can see why she was so upset.
It’s easy to be sloppy with someone else’s stuff. Saint Benedict foresees this danger in his
monasteries, which is why he devotes three chapters to the care of material
possessions.
Contrary to popular belief, monks do
not take a vow of poverty.[1] Nonetheless, Saint Benedict makes it clear
that no monk is to have anything of his own.
But it is precisely for this reason that the monk must treat everything in
the material world with extraordinary care: in his eyes, it all belongs to God. Now apply this way of thinking to the world
at large. It is, in a manner of
speaking, “on loan” to us from God.
Before long, we’ll be dead and someone else will be in charge of it. Even the stuff we “own” will belong to
someone else some day, no matter how hard we cling to it.[2]
So regardless of how you feel about
‘climate change’ or ‘species extinction’ or ‘resource depletion’, the natural
and material world should be treated with enormous care because it just doesn’t
belong to us. We have no more right to
burn a hole in the ozone layer than we have a right to burn a hole in someone
else’s carpet. It’s a matter of
respect—not for nature itself, but for nature’s Architect and Lord.
[1] We also don’t take a vow of chastity. But more on that later.
[2] I find it darkly amusing how kings in so many ancient
cultures tried to hold on to their material possessions after they died. Museums are full of artwork and armor that
were buried with their owners in the expectation that they could enjoy it in
the afterlife. One Sumerian king even
left instructions for his servants to be buried alive with him!
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